Jan. 12 marked the third anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, killing 300,000 people, leaving thousands homeless, creating outbreaks of disease and destroying art and archives. The country had barely begun to recover when Hurricane Sandy added to the devastation.

Sadly, Haiti is no stranger to tragedy. For centuries, the island has endured slavery, political repression, poverty, and natural disaster that have made it one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet you would never know it from its art. In paintings vibrant with life and color, resplendent with cheerful depictions of city and country life and lush surreal landscapes, Haitian artists somehow preserve their own intrinsic values that refuse to be corrupted by their country's deep troubles.

That optimism is on display in the Rodale Gallery at the Allentown Art Museum. Featured are 35 paintings and works of sculpture by Haitian artists from the collection of the Rodale Family. The exhibition marks the public debut of artwork that the late Robert Rodale and his wife Ardath collected in Haiti from the late 1970s through the 1980s when Rodale was chairman and CEO of Rodale Inc. of Emmaus and the Rodale Institute.

"Rodale started the collection out of his interest in improving conditions in underdeveloped countries, including Haiti," says exhibit curator Diane Fischer. "Purchasing the art was an extension of the Rodale family's generosity. He didn't necessarily purchase art from Haiti's most internationally known artists. He especially wanted to support the poorer artists."

The collection began as a joint venture between Rodale and his friend Jacques Lauriac, the director of two French relief organizations in Haiti. Lauriac recommended a couple of art galleries to Rodale, who would visit the galleries, talk to the artists, if available, and have Lauriac purchase paintings and ship them back to the U.S.

The paintings vividly recount Haiti's history and mask its brutal poverty through vibrant explosions in bright Play-Doh colors of passion, imagination, anger and desire. There are idyllic jungle scenes replete with giraffes, elephants, and zebras; colorful wedding processions, and verdant landscapes filled with exotic tropical birds. They all provide an escapism that defies the island's deep troubles. Although most date from the 1980s, their "modern primitive" sensibility makes them appear quite contemporary.

Also on view are sculptures, including a whimsical figure made from a rusted steel oil drum, and a painted papier-mâché sculpture by Yves Estimé, depicting the founding father and first emperor of the First Haitian Empire, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, astride a diminutive horse.

The exhibition features works by more than 20 Haitian artists, including the generation of painters influenced by the Haitian national art school, established in 1944 when American artist Dewitt Peters founded Le Centre d'Art that served as both an art school and gallery.

Three types of Haitian art is represented in the collection: the "Cap-Haitien" style of the north that followed French Academicism, the southern style of real and imaginary landscapes and city scenes in vivid color, and Vodou (Voodoo) art reflecting Haiti's African heritage.

Although two of the artists represented are internationally known — André Normil, born in 1934, and Seymour Etienne Bottex, born in 1922 — it is likely most of them would still be lingering in obscurity were it not for the French surrealist poet André Breton, who "discovered" their work a few years after Le Centre d'Art was founded.

"When Peters first established the center, most Haitian artists were unschooled, and few had any interest in learning Western techniques. Most of the art instructors simply stashed the works away out of embarrassment. Then Breton visited and saw all these lively, vibrant paintings untainted by Western culture, and Haitian art became internationally known," Fischer says.

Still, Fischer had to do an enormous amount of research to set up the show. Most of the paintings — all acrylic, due to its low cost — are untitled and many are undated. Many of the artists, who are not well known to begin with, have obscure birth and death dates.

Many canvases depict the country as a surreal paradise. In one untitled scene, Normil presents Haiti's lush landscape as a Garden of Eden, with an interracial Adam and Eve at its center, surrounded by, zebras, lions, tigers, and elephants. The image suggests Edward Hicks' "Peaceable Kingdom" as strongly as Gabriel Alix's untitled portrait of a wide-eyed cat, serenely gazing at us from a jungle habitat, conjures the tiger in Henri Rousseau's famous "The Dream."